


Warmth Against The Cold

by genarti



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Banter, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Drinks All Around, Friendship, Gen, Les Amis de l'ABC - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-05
Updated: 2013-06-05
Packaged: 2017-12-14 00:44:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/830734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genarti/pseuds/genarti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which punch is made, friends are teased, no amount of incarnate symbolism prevents anyone from a stuffy nose, and Courfeyrac demonstrates why he's the warm center of the Amis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warmth Against The Cold

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't originally intending to post this for Barricade Day, but then the timing worked out so well I decided I had to. (Even though it's well off the barricades, and not even during an earlier riot or anything.)
> 
> Thanks to Elsane for betaing -- believe me, this fic was way worse before she took a look! Thanks also to Ryfkah for letting me bounce ideas off her, and giving me the idea that pulled this together.

The day was dismal, as the weeks before it had been, full of unrelenting grey drizzle. The cold was not bone-chilling, but that was its one mercy, and scant that mercy was. There is a wet chill that oppresses the spirit and the flesh together. Laundry never quite dries, families quarrel, men fight in cafés but find no joy in exertion or victory, children cough, horses sicken, all is glum and dreary. 

Besides that, the petty illnesses brought on by such weather were circulating around the city; one burden closer to a crushing weight for the poorest, merely an annoyance for the well-fed. Half the Amis de l'A B C had come down with colds. The less dedicated had stayed away from the cafés to nurture their recuperation, or to work longer hours in trade for fellows obliged to stay home. Those of stronger conviction came anyway, and sneezed through their evenings. On the previous evening, only those who might be termed the lieutenants of the group had shown their faces at the Café Musain. Courfeyrac, who had remained in obnoxious good health, had mounted a table and declared himself fed up with the situation. 

"My friends," he proclaimed, "this is insupportable; we journey through miserable weather to inflict ourselves miserably upon each other, and afflict Louison with our sneezing and snuffling and short tempers. I propose a relocation. Tomorrow I shall be in my rooms at the Rue de la Verrerie; all of you are welcome to call, limited only by the number of bodies we can fit into the corners. I shall make punch. Old-fashioned, you may say -- English, you may say -- but even the most up-to-date may call upon old ideas when they're good ones. It will be warming and healthful, which will please the suffering, and delicious, which will please everyone. Chapdelaine and Louison both will doubtless be relieved as well to have their back room free of the chilly misery of continual sneezing, so we are doing them a kindness in trade for the dinners we won't buy. I insist you all come. I will make a vat of punch no matter what, and I cannot drink it all myself, as I make but a poor Bacchus, so you will be doing me a mercy by coming to help." 

The idea was met by widespread approval, and no dissent except a joint insistence by Enjolras and Feuilly that work be done as well as punch-drinking. Courfeyrac, whose light words and fashionable airs covered a heart as fiercely dedicated as the rest, had no objection at all to calculating tactics of insurrection in his lodgings. Indeed, those rooms had seen smaller discussions along the same lines on many occasions. Thus the motion carried.

The next day's meeting had begun in an orderly fashion, despite its unorthodox location and the disposition of its members across every piece of Courfeyrac's furniture and some sectors of his floor. Stores of powder and other supplies were accounted for, and those who had been in contact with other groups of similar sentiments provided further information about their activities. A great deal of discussion had occurred on the subject of rumors that Legistimists in the government planned another funeral for d'Artois of Berry. Popular anger at such a celebration of royalist sentiments seemed not only probable but certain, especially after the betrayals of July. Enjolras took notes, after Laigle’s first attempt to do so resulted in a spilled ink-pot that ruined not only a page of notes but the knee of his trousers. "Ah well,” said Laigle, “they were growing faded, poor trousers. Dyeing them with ink spares me the cost of having them turned,” but Enjolras demanded paper and pen after that.

From these businesslike beginnings, however, the group’s activities had long since degenerated. All intelligence had been communicated; any plans for the Duke of Berry's memorial were obliged to be postponed until such time as anyone received solid confirmation that such a memorial would indeed take place; all notes had been taken, discontent expressed and agreed with. Jean Prouvaire was reciting alexandrines from _Les Tragiques_ to the ceiling. Courfeyrac and Joly, at work by the stove and bickering amiably over the recipe, contributed occasional puns as commentary, which Prouvaire ignored. Enjolras, who had a bad cold, had consented to lie down with his head on Combeferre’s knee. Reticent by nature, if only in repose, he was kept more quiet even than usual by the difficulty of producing ringing speech through the congestion afflicting his sinuses, and had occupied himself with translating his notes by means of certain ciphered words into a form suitable for passing on to the leaders of other groups. He had borrowed a volume of Rousseau's _Confessions_ from Courfeyrac to use as a makeshift desk, and for a time had persevered despite the difficulty of writing a steady hand with paper propped against an upraised knee; his fingers were covered in ink. His handkerchief and cheek, too, were smudged with black, for Enjolras was obliged to pause frequently to blow his nose. It was a testimonial to illness that even this firm young patriot had at length given in to lethargy enough to halt his pen (thus endangering his waistcoat with the threat of more ink) and close his eyes. He seemed halfway to sleep despite the hour and the noise of the room. Combeferre’s dark hand rested on his friend’s forehead as if to take the place of a compress, while he listened to Feuilly and Bahorel argue, and occasionally added a mild comment. Neither Feuilly nor Bahorel was much inclined to mildness in debate, for all that their principles were often in accord, and their discussion was loud and heated. From Laffitte they had moved to Czartoryski, and from Louis-Philippe to Constantine. Feuilly had been following the recent events in Warsaw with the fierce passion of fellow-feeling; Bahorel was likewise diligent in reading a wide variety of newspapers, in his case (as he said) that he might better mock stupid opinions in detail. Courfeyrac, Joly, and even the currently languishing Prouvaire periodically interrupted their own conversations to contribute to this exchange as well, creating a merrily contentious cacophony.

Courfeyrac, in shirtsleeves to spare his waistcoat the chance of splashed wine, was attempting to scrape peel from his third lemon with the fifth lump of sugar. “No, no, I will not have it,” he informed Joly, who was squinting doubtfully at this process but helping to stir the resulting shreds of sugary lemon into a potent mixture of brandy and Batavia arrack. “Milk punch may be salubrious, but it's three steps too English for me, and besides I've never made the stuff. I refuse to ruin a perfectly good recipe in the name of medical experiment. Not to mention that I didn't buy milk."

Joly moved to rub his nose with his cane, realized he was holding instead a wooden spoon which dripped sugary spiced brandy on the stovetop, and so scratched at his chin. “I suppose it's strengthening enough from the amount of brandy you poured in. Are you ready for the hot water? I'll take it off otherwise, it's about to boil.”

“No, take it off, I'm wrestling with this lemon -- I will not be defeated, the end is certain, but it's putting up a good fight. I always forget how long this bit takes. (I honor you, o lemon, and sorrow for your skinless downfall -- now kindly give in to the inevitability, would you?) It won't be ready for wine and water for a few minutes yet, not if you want the punch to taste right instead of like hot brandy with bits of lemon peel bobbing about." He dropped the last of the peel into the pot with a triumphal air, crumbled the sugar to follow, and glanced up. "Ha, there! Combeferre, do I remember right that you dislike nutmeg? Dear fellow, that is an inexcusably fond look you are giving someone who sounds like a pig snorting in the underbrush.”

“I excuse it,” called Jean Prouvaire, whose large and rough-hewn frame was occupying most of the chaise in a languishing sprawl. He might have had a declamatory tone had his nose been any less congested than Enjolras’s. As it was, his voice was thick and clogged. “Friendship, fondness, pigs snorting after acorns, I excuse and exalt them all. Why should affection falter in the least because of a stuffed-up nose? It should not. Nature sends us all snuffling at times. Indeed, she sends far worse -- sooner or later, but inevitably. True feelings persist through all suffering and past death, or they are not true; a cold is nothing; in its small way, it mimics the burnishing that greater sufferings bring to the sentiments of the human heart--" and here he was forced to stop by a fit of sneezing.

"Poor little Je-han," drawled Bahorel, stretching out the name so there could be no doubt of its spelling. Prouvaire, who was both the youngest and the tallest of the group, took sufficient exception on one basis or the other to being called 'little' that he made a rude gesture at Bahorel between sneezes. Bahorel whooped with laughter like a proud older brother. "There, now, suffering is burnishing your repertoire of rudeness! Retain it when you're healthy, please, it will make drinking with you twice as fun."

"Id's already fud," Prouvaire said with dignity, and blew his nose.

"Yes," said Joly, "and he doesn't need his nose broken as many times as yours has been." Bahorel scoffed, but Joly continued, "What can be keeping Bossuet? I knew we shouldn't have let him go out alone for the bread -- God only knows what trouble he's likely fallen into."

"I'll go look," said Feuilly. He had let Courfeyrac and Bahorel argue him only with difficulty into accepting bread and his share of Courfeyrac's half wheel of antique cheese for dinner ("It's been in my cupboard for long enough that you'd positively be doing me a favor by helping me get rid of it before it's inedible," Courfeyrac had wheedled, while Joly made appalled faces at the rest of the cupboard's contents and muttered about feeding colds), and their combined forces had been insufficient to arguing him out of feeling guilty about it. He was consequently eager to volunteer for any helpful errand. "He can't have gone too far, there aren't that many bakers nearby."

Just then, however, there came a tramp on the stairs. Feuilly and Bahorel cocked glances at the door, and Enjolras's eyes slitted open, but Joly relaxed. The door opened a moment later without knocking or fanfare, to reveal a decidedly damp Bossuet with two loaves of bread under an arm. "I forgot my hat," he said, sheepishly. "Fortunately I have no hair to disarray. Courfeyrac would have been in much worse case."

"I would never forget my hat," Courfeyrac called across the room, "as soon forget my shoes or my walking stick. Come, dear eagle, warm your pinions by the stove, although please not too close until I've moved the punch. I trust your will but not your luck, and I will never forgive any of us if something that smells this delicious gets spilled."

"I can't smell it," said Feuilly.

"And that's why you need it."

"Yes, yes," Combeferre sighed, "we all know you are enormously proud of your punch-making skills, Courfeyrac. Did you ever figure out if you had cups enough?"

"Er," said Courfeyrac, casting a hasty glance towards his bachelor cupboard.

"As to that," Laigle said, setting the loaves on the table, "I come bearing cheering news. I ran into Grantaire in the street -- literally, I fear, but I hadn't yet acquired any bread to damage. He has been treating his cold with his usual physic, as one might expect, and thus has been mostly horizontal and, I presume, largely insensible. It does seem a reasonable way to ignore discomfort, albeit in trade for another sort when one sobers up enough for headache. I would not have his dedication to the tactic. At any rate, he is much recovered, as you will have already gathered, and I invited him to join us on condition that he bring three or four clean cups along. He has gone to fetch them."

"Good!" said Courfeyrac, taking up the kettle; "I was beginning to worry about him. Our great air is rarely absent many days at a stretch. You have relieved my mind and solved a minor difficulty in one stroke."

"Minor!" laughed Bahorel. "You have sung the praises of your concoction far too much to deprive any of us of the opportunity to judge it for ourselves. A cup for each, that's equality in action, and good hosting as well. You've been saved by Bossuet's luck, my friend. If that's not enough to shame you I don't know what is."

"Not much," murmured Prouvaire.

"We would have managed," said Combeferre prosaically, "but your dignity might not have."

"Dignity," said Joly, refilling the kettle from the bucket by the door, "is distressingly futile in this crowd anyway."

While this exchange was occupying the room, Feuilly had laid out the half-wheel of cheese next to the bread, along with a knife he had found in the cupboard. "Courfeyrac, shall I put away the brandy and arrack?"

"Yes, thanks," said Courfeyrac absently, poking at his punch, which with the addition of spice and hot water had become a fragrant simmering mixture that filled his only pot nearly to brimful. Satisfied, he set down his wooden spoon on the stove. Feuilly, passing by to pick up the bottles, discreetly rescued it from becoming scorched. "Friends," declared Courfeyrac, missing this, "you have ten minutes to wait -- I know it troubles you, I can tell impatience is pressing, I am well aware that if you are so rude as to still be muttering poetry, Prouvaire, it is only to console yourself -- and then the punch will be ready. Handily, that's time for Grantaire and his cups of mercy to arrive. There will soon be more hot water ready for use by any heathens so lacking in taste as to wish to water down good punch, Enjolras." Enjolras, who had closed his eyes again during Bossuet's announcement and not yet reopened them, smiled faintly in acknowledgment. "For the rest of you more sensible fellows, enjoy it as it comes from the pot, and be glad of it. The more you drink, the less excuse you have to venture out into the damp, and the better insulated against it you'll be when necessity at last compels. For now, be merry -- anticipate -- content yourselves -- and someone help me find the ladle, would you? I could swear I just had it."

"You hung it back up on the hook," said Joly, laughing. "An unprecedented display of tidiness, so it makes sense that it was accidental."

Another set of footsteps, heavier and more uneven than Laigle's, heralded Grantaire's arrival. He was red-eyed, unshaven, squinting away from the window's light, carrying four mismatched cups; when he greeted the room, it was clear that his cold had settled in his throat, and was not yet wholly gone. "Your Ganymede arrives, my friends, though he makes a poor one: no marble thighs, no dewy lip. Strike down the brute! cries Jupiter. This specimen of hungover humanity has no place on Olympus. But we cannot all be gods, and the cups are clean. I washed them. I trust the nectar is worth my labor, Courfeyrac."

"I've seen you cut your absinthe with an equal amount of water," said Bahorel, "and pour stout in the mix. Whatever mess Courfeyrac has made will be nectar indeed compared with that."

"And hot and strengthening," said Combeferre, "which that throat of yours will benefit from, by the sound of it. Come in and close the door, and kick Prouvaire's legs aside, he doesn't need the whole chaise." Prouvaire shifted obediently to a sideways slouch that left room for a companion to share the seat.

"It's nectar of its own accord," said Courfeyrac, indignant, "what's this 'whatever mess' business? Somebody pick the smallest cup -- that's Bahorel's, for rank ingratitude and backtalking the man serving the alcohol. I shall ladle it out myself, and be as scanty as possible, so he can make a judicious assessment before he deigns to have more of the best punch in Paris. The rest of you, come along, come up, or send somebody else to do it if you insist upon sprawling. Enjolras, Combeferre, I don't have three hands, so one of you will need to let the other up -- oh, thanks, Feuilly." He raised his own cup, steaming in the close air of the crowded room. "To your health, my friends!"

**Author's Note:**

> A few notes:
> 
> \- Marius isn't here because it's Januaryish of 1831, and he isn't going to come ask to sleep with Courfeyrac for another year or so. They're friends, but either Courfeyrac didn't see Marius that day or he knows better by this point than to invite Marius to a giant bumptious revolutionary meeting house party. (I figure Marius is a lot more comfortable with smaller quieter groups than with this entire cacophonously wrangling crew.)
> 
> \- The events they're discussing in Paris and in Poland actually happened, but I have no idea if the winter of 1830/1831 was especially rainy.
> 
> \- I suspect Courfeyrac should be letting the punch simmer more if he really wants it to taste good, but I've never actually made hot alcoholic punch like this, so... we'll just say he's impatient. It's hot and sugary and formidably alcoholic, anyway, which will content most of this crowd! (Enjolras will water his down a lot. Some of the others might too, I dunno.)
> 
> \- I'm sorry about the dreadful pun in the title. Well, no, that's a lie; I'm actually only sorry that I couldn't think of a dreadful pun that worked in French too.


End file.
